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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 1892502" data-attributes="member: 3586">Two matters:Is the RPG Industry in trouble?How many players are participating in Role-Playing Games? Is this growing, shrinking or remaining stable?As to the first: I don't know. Small companies (and most RPG companies are small, these days) are almost always on the edge, especially with RPGs.Some other companies have made bad business decisions with respect to RPGs. (I'm looking at Decipher)Other companies have increased their output of RPG material (Wizards).One of the key problems that faces anyone in the RPG industry is to get past the core problem at the heart of ongoing RPG sales: most RPG customers don't need supplements.I think this is especially true of D&D. With Vampire, the design of the world was an important part of the game, and thus additional sourcebooks on the world (clans, regions, etc.) were somewhat more integral to the game than a book like "Frostburn" or "Complete Warrior" is to D&D. The core D&D books give so much play in their pages that anything else is a luxury.As to the second issue, the player base for RPGs - which is not identical to those actually buying supplements, though it is related:I do think that the D&D 3.5E system is too much for many new gamers. It isn't that the system is overly complicated (it might be), but there are too many options - thus giving a sense of Information Overload. The release of the D&D Basic Game is very important, and I look forward to seeing its effect on the player base.I also think that the release of C&C may be a positive step towards addressing the needs of those players for whom D&D 3.5E is just "too much".However, the effects of the competition for the gamer dollar shouldn't be dismissed. Board games, computer games, ccgs and other things (not even games!) have also greatly improved over the years. The competition is much harder.Cheers!</blockquote>

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